If you’ve ever visited a Show-Home you’ll have noticed how much effort the designers go to when planning and decorating the Master bedroom.  Ok, I agree, not many of us tend to inhabit bedrooms that are as glamorous or indeed as ‘over the top’ in style and decor as a Show-Home.  And, I’m not suggesting that your bedroom has to be styled to the n’th degree.  However, when you are preparing your home for sale, the Master bedroom requires a little extra thought and preparation.  Show-Home designers are employed to create an interior that persuades us to buy; to provide an aspirational interior that will ‘sell’ the property to us and the Master bedroom is a key factor in the process.

Show-Home bedroom by Jacqui Smith of HomeSmiths

Conducting a successful viewing, turning viewers into buyers, simply means getting the viewer to (positively) imagine themselves occupying your space.

Bedrooms, particularly Master bedrooms, are private, intimate rooms, that most of us don’t even show our visiting friends or family … unless of course we have just cleaned, redecorated, styled and generally have something to show off!  Our inbuilt sense of reserve, prevents us from wandering into a friend’s bedroom the way we would any of the more public rooms of their home.  And, if we do find ourselves invited into this most personal of spaces, we mainly tend to hover in the doorway, slightly ill at ease and not wanting to intrude.

‘Who’s hiding under the covers?’

Getting your viewer to connect with your property and see your home as their’s, requires the viewer to feel at ease, relaxed and definitely not as though they are intruding.  An uncomfortable, whistle stop tour of the principle rooms in your home is unlikely to secure an offer anytime soon.

I have lost count of the number of bedrooms I have viewed.  Some of them have been fabulously presented for sale, others looked as though the owner had literally just jumped out of his/her steaming pit!

‘Phew just got out of bed before the agent arrived – mind the chamber-pot!’

So how can you encourage your potential buyer to linger and appreciate all your property has to offer?

Remember that the Master bedroom is the room that the buyer (the one responsible for paying the hefty mortage or squandering their life savings) will inhabit themselves.  To them, maybe it’ll be more than just a bedroom.  Perhaps it’ll be a retreat from the job they love to hate.  Or a sanctuary from a busy family life.  This will be your buyer’s personal space… make them fall in love with it.

‘A little too de-personalised!’

Even if currently, your bedroom is home to the ever present ironing pile or regularly becomes a clutttered dumping ground, when your property is for sale its worth spending a little extra time and effort preparing the Master bedroom.

Above all … keep it clean!  Take that how you will but essentially a tidy, super clean, fresh smelling, de-personalised (although not too sterile) bedroom is the best.

  • No dirty piles of knickers in the corner of the bedroom.
  • No overflowing linen baskets or clothes drying on the radiator.

‘Wardrobe too full?’

  • No obviously yellow sweaty-head stained pillows.
  • No crumpled, steaming, smelly bedlinen.  Don’t leave the bed as though you’ve just got up.
  • No family picture galleries, eerily watching your viewers every move.
  • No rubbish in the waste-bins.
  • No animals (real or stuffed!) on the bed or dog baskets in the room.
  • No ‘lads’ mags, except well hidden and under the bed!
  • No half eaten bits of toast, or mugs of cold tea on the bedside cabinets.
  • No car-boot sale corner (you know, the collection of stuff you are always promising to get rid of).

It’s realitively easy to create the allure of a Show-Home bedroom.  Air the room before viewings.  Iron the bedlinen. De-personalise by limiting the amount of family photos, clear away hairbrushes and make up.  Keep your clothes and shoes out of sight and your bedside tables free of tablets, receipts and other paraphernalia.

Home Staging project – The Property Styling Company

 If you do nothing else…. at least change the sheets and make the bed!

Credits:

www.homesmiths.co.uk – photo of show-home bedroom

www.michaelpalmer.com – photos of home-staging project

If you need advice on styling, selling or buying property and would like to discuss working with me … my main website can be found at www.propertystylingcompany.co.uk. Contact can be made through this wordpress site, by email or by calling 07789 488446.